Halloween for an Anxious Person

Halloween brings up some mixed feelings for me, as well as for many of us who were raised in the church, I imagine. I grew up in an environment of "Fall Festivals" at churches, warm, charming pumpkins with sunny smiles, and repeat cat costumes (I don't remember ever dressing as anything else). But this year, as part of embracing my emotions, including fear, I'm immersing myself in this particular holiday more than I normally would.

I'm not sure exactly how to explain myself, but I want to teach Q that fear and sadness aren't evil or even bad--they're just emotions, arguably necessary if we want to achieve contentment and self-actualization. Part of my own therapy when dealing with my anxiety is to stop trying to push it away from me, but to take a deep breath, stop, and look at it. When my vision begins to go blurry or I feel the stabbing pains in my back, I try to look at them and remember the source.

I recall being easily frightened as a child. I could give you many examples, but frankly, it would be embarrassing. As a teenager, I had crippling social anxiety and made my boyfriend order for me at restaurants. Even as an adult, a bad piece of local news or a tense scene in a movie can knock me off kilter for a week.

So I've been taking Q browsing through the Halloween aisles. We press the buttons on the displays and sometimes get a start, but she usually wants to see me press it again. I try on scary masks for her. We bought fake webs and jeweled spiders to decorate our house. She pretends the rocks she collects on our cracked sidewalk are little skulls.

I have been partially influenced by Caitlin Doughty, a mortician who posts regular, interesting mortician-related videos on her website, Order of the Good Death, and wrote an excellent book called Smoke Gets in Your Eyes that mirrored some of my own childhood experience in that she struggled with OCD and a preoccupation with death after a traumatic experience. She believes that we, as a culture, sweep death under the rug to an unhealthy extent. She posits that we should begin talking to our children about death at an early age, reframing it as an acceptable part of life.

I have, to some extent, been taking an open and honest approach with Q. I don't want her to live in fear as I did, and indeed still do. I don't know if anything could have quelled my fear. I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch scary movies or walk through a haunted house. But I discuss death with her, and anatomy, and skeletons, and how babies are born, and physical boundaries, and how everyone gets afraid sometime, and bravery, and personal hygiene, and "tricky adults," and I try to keep an open, honest dialogue with her as much as possible, because she has a beautiful, inquisitive, creative mind, and I think it's good for her. I don't always know if I'm doing the right thing.

We're going to go trick-or-treating tonight, and I know that some things may be scary for her. We've been pointing out all the Halloween decorations to each other, and talking about how sometimes it's fun to be scared, and sometimes it's not. I'll let her decide if she thinks a house is too scary to go up to. And I would be lying if I didn't admit that Halloween makes me a little nervous. Someone like me has trouble processing why someone would WANT to be afraid for sport.

But no matter what, keep in mind that Halloween is only a fraction as scary as this upcoming presidential election.

To Reproduce, or Not to Reproduce

Since Q was a couple of years old (and not a minute before), the tiny nagging thought that I should make some reproductive decisions has been tapping relentlessly at the corner of my mind. Now, as she approaches 4 years old, the tapping has turned into a steady knock, rapping out a rhythm that sounds an awful lot like, "Make a decision, make a decision, make a decision."

These past 6 months have been spent agonizing over the matter, researching, speaking with my doctors and therapists, making to do lists, and weighing pros and cons. I've had a "Before I Get Pregnant" to do list that I've been working on from my phone for about 2 years, and it includes things like "get an insulin pump" (done!) and "adjust/discuss current medications" (also done--much researched has been pored into this particular list item).

I've made plans to put my life on hold for 1-2 years. I've considered things like quarantining Q and myself during the first trimester so that I minimize the risk of getting sick and having irregular blood sugars, which would be most damaging to the fetus during the first trimester. I've tried to time it so that Q would be entering school AFTER my pregnancy, because I know a lot of new illnesses will be entering our house at that time. Yet, I wanted her to be old enough to be somewhat self-sufficient so if I am sick and nonfunctional, she will be able to entertain herself. I've over-analyzed and over-planned. They say if you want to make God laugh, make a plan.

This time, I would have the added complication of hypothyroidism to deal with during pregnancy. But this time, I would have the added benefit of an insulin pump and a lower starting weight. This time, I'm on more medications for my mental health, but this time, I am also much more self-aware of my mental health and have an airtight professional support system of therapist, doctor, pharmacist, and diabetic nurse.

Whatever decision I make, I have come to peace with the fact that I won't know whether it's the right decision until much further down the road--maybe not even until my child(ren) is/are grown. There are too many unknowns. Perhaps something would be wrong with the baby as the result of my diabetes, and it would put an incredible strain on the family. Or perhaps if I decide not to have another child, Q is left struggling to care alone for two diabetic parents at a too-young age. There is no right decision.

All of this to say, whichever decision we make regarding a second child, never think for one moment that it hasn't been thoroughly thought-out from almost every possible angle. And if we do decide to go through it, well... I'm sure I'll need all the help and support I can get. Thanks for reading my internal-ramblings-gone-blog-post.